The quality of health care is founded on complete and accurate information about the patient.
Presently, four main diagnostic modalities are used in hospitals: X-ray, including computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, radiopharmaceutical imaging and ultrasound.
Computed tomography (CT) is a medical imaging method employing tomography. Digital geometry processing is used to generate a three-dimensional image of the inside of an object from a large series of two-dimensional X-ray images taken around a single axis of rotation. CT produces a volume of data which can be manipulated, through a process known as windowing, in order to demonstrate various structures based on their ability to block the X-ray beam.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique primarily used in Radiology to visualize the structure and function of the body. It provides detailed images of the body in any plane. MRI provides much greater contrast between the different soft tissues of the body than does computed tomography (CT), making it especially useful in neurological, musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, and oncological imaging. Unlike CT it uses no ionizing radiation, but uses a (powerful) magnetic field to align the nuclear magnetization of (usually) hydrogen atoms in water in the body.
Radiopharmacology is the study and preparation of radiopharmaceuticals, which are radioactive pharmaceuticals. Radiopharmaceuticals are used in the field of nuclear medicine as tracers in the diagnosis and treatment.
Medical sonography (ultrasonography) is an ultrasound-based diagnostic medical imaging technique used to visualize muscles, tendons, and many internal organs, their size, structure and any pathological lesions with real time tomographic images. It is also used to visualize a fetus during routine and emergency prenatal care. Ultrasound is one of the most widely used diagnostic tools in modern medicine.
Increasing demand for medical diagnostics is being driven by the aging population and the rise in prevalence of age-related diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer's disease, stroke, heart failure, etc. These diseases represent the highest cost burden to healthcare systems in industrialized nations, and there is tremendous pressure to develop tests that can assist in earlier diagnosis and aid selection of the most appropriate treatments in order to reduce costs. Hospitals are looking to purchase cost-efficient and more specialized medical equipment that will require fewer medical staff and reduce patients' length of hospital stay.
Despite recent spectacular advances in medicine, mortality rates for the most prevalent cancers have not been significantly reduced. In terms of primary prevention, we do not as yet have at hand robust strategies for these metabolic disorders or diseases.
Thus, there is a need for a simple, portable, noninvasive, rapid, accurate, easy to use, inexpensive and safe diagnostic apparatus to help health care providers to diagnose automatically and in real-time risk or presence of health issues such as, for example, infection, cancer, malignancy diseases or metabolic disorder in order to allow health care providers to take decisions at faster rate and react quickly and appropriately to prognosis or disease risk.